People whine about bureaucracy in congress. Get that president in line. Tell your senators what to do Goddamnit. They protest. Form tea parties rallies. Write letters. These patriots are gonna fight the man and the depths of hell will not stop them

These people are amateurs. This afternoon I walked into an institution where bureaucracy knows no bounds: Rite Aid. When I go to the pharmacy it’s like going to a gun fight. I have my paper prescriptions in one holster, the refillable bottles in the other. I know this is going to be a war.

Pharmacists have to follow regulations to the letter, and there are more regulations than pills in a bottle. So my simple quest to pick up an ol’ prescription becomes like slaying a minotaur deep inside the labyrinth: my prize, some little blue morsels in a bottle: my quest: a maze of insurance denials, miswritten or misread prescriptions, expiration dates 1 day past, and ornery, jaded pharmacists who just wished they could have been doctors.

With reservation, I place my prescription on the counter. You can’t be too careful with these people; there are rumors of pharmacy techs morphing into labyrinthine chimera on cue. My rule: never get too close. So at arms’ length, my scrip falls gingerly to the counter to be scooped up and examined brutally by the mythical beast in a lab coat.

“Oh no,” the pharmacist says, as she taps out letters on a computer keyboard. “Your insurance won’t be covering this.” High gear mode sets in. What is this pharmacist talking about? I thought insurance and I were pals. Last month the insurance company and I frolicked together with ponies and kittens, with rainbows showering down pharmaceuticals as they joyfully covered my prescription. But now it looks like things have changed. Maybe they don’t think this love affair will work after all. But insurance company! We were so good together!

I go to the ultimate source to trample the insurance company bureaucracy: my mother. Dialing her digits on my phone, holding back hyperventilating breaths, I told my knight in shining apron the situation: the insurance company had some kind of procedural problem now that I had a new ID number on my insurance card. “I’ll take care of this,” she said. I provided her with names and phone numbers, and told her to call me back. Thank god for mom, I thought, because all I could say was “screw perscriptions. I need a beer.”

Since this issue is one I take very seriously, I will spend most of the following dispelling American Thinker’s cute little quips than introducing my own. And I do so because this is what is wrong with the health care debate: no one really knows what the new health care plan is or what any of its components mean (I don’t even!). So instead of really partaking in intelligent discourse, we indulge in propaganda, scare tactics, out-of-context information, and flat out misconstructions of the truth intended to lead you in one direction while blinding you to the other half of the fork in the road. As such, this article and I are going to have a debate in another edition of Dear God it’s what Rachel Thinks

Article:

“Any or all of these will lead to a government takeover of the health care industry.”

DGIWRT:

Health care should not be an industry. No one should be profiting off of someone’s poor health, and decisions certainly should not be made with profit in mind.

Article: “Should your grandmother get a hip replacement? Go down the hall to the queue outside Office 37-B and fill out more forms. We’ll let you know in a few months. Hey, you with the brain tumor. Get back in line.”

DGIWRT:

Speaking as someone with a brain tumor, I can’t tell you how many doctors I had to see, referrals I had to beg for, insurance forms I had to fill out, monstrous copays I had to pay, and overall shitty treatment I received even on double coverage from the health care industry. Or maybe I can tell you. Oh wait, I don’t have a year of your time.

Furthermore, people who can’t afford insurance don’t even get to be in line

Article:

“A centralized system would give the government the power of life and death over America’s families”

DGIWRT:

How is government having the power over life and death any worse than an HMO having this power? The government is no more impersonal, the government is no more profit-seeking, the government is no more frugal, the government is no more misinformed.

Article:

“Such a system also reinforces the idea that government is God.”

DGIWRT:

You’re a paranoid propaganda peddling fuck

Article:

“Often treatment is not withheld altogether, but it is delayed, sometimes with the result that the patient’s condition worsens. … About 50 per cent had to wait over a month and 20 per cent more than three months. Over one in three of those waiting said that their condition had got worse while they were waiting and 14 per cent claimed to be ‘in a lot of pain.'”

DGIWRT:

I waited 9 months for a shoulder surgery. 9 months. You need to look at the present facts before peddling future fears

Article:

“Randy Stroup, 53, a cancer patient, applied for aid under Oregon’s state health plan in 2008. He got a letter denying payments for chemotherapy, but offering money to help him kill himself.”

DGIWRT:

This statement is strikingly misleading. First, the Oregon Health Plan was introduced in the 1990’s, at which point it was far more comprehensive than it is today (or in 2008) due to cutbacks because we would rather give subsidies to Portland General Electric than pay for chemotherapy. What this article doesn’t tell you is that the OHP expanded healthcare for thousands of Oregonians who were in a terrible limbo between not qualifying for medicare and not affording their own insurance. Furthermore, this man had less than a 5 percent chance of significant recovery. This was not a man that was denied arbitrarily. Yes, it would be wonderful if the state could pay for his chemotherapy. And since you agree, I’m sure you’d also agree to taking a small bite out of pentagon funding to do so.

Also, the fact that they would offer assisted-suicide is pretty irrelevant

And ten bucks says he petitioned the government because his private insurance wouldn’t cover his chemotherapy either. Or he didn’t have any to begin with.

October 28, 2009

I’ve figured it out. Your secret is no longer safe, at least with me. Halloween, you’ve been busted.

For decades, Halloween has been a wholesome, jolly occasion to dress up and have wholesome, jolly fun. But not really. If you look at the holiday a little closer, Halloween is really a wholesome, jolly occasion to dress up as slutty as possible. After all, it’s all justifiable with a little “Trick or Treat!”

Basically, all Halloween costumes are ordinary characters with the word “slutty” put in front of it. Yeah, we all know zombies don’t wear mini skirts.

Take the slutty nurse costume. Nurses poke and prod you in unmentionable places. They are not fun. And how many scantily clad nurses are there in real life? How many on October 31st? See, just add the prefix “slutty” to any character and woh-oh-OH do we have a killer costume. And so, the slutty nurse, the slutty vampire, the slutty secretary, and so many more have been born.

So here is a list of other jobs that should be added to the Halloween repetoire of sluttiness — costumes that will be magnificently transformed by your willingness to skank it up!

October 22, 2009

So flying from Oregon to Prov, I decided to read Sky Mall instead of something more enriching, like, say, a book.

I LOVE this magazine and its ridiculous products. They always evoke the best reactions out of me. Here are a few I share with you today as together we take a tour of the majesty of in-the-air shopping and my brain.

This is purely for people who have fetishes for Cyclops from the X Men

2. The voice activated R2-D2.
“R2 can also replay sounds and dialog from Star Wars, answer yes-or-no questions, and dance while playing the famed Cantina music.” R2 is 15 inches tall.

No matter how much you like star wars, do not purchase this item. If you purchase this item, you are effectively ending any chance that anyone will ever sleep with you. If you purchase this item and I already am sleeping with you, this will stop. Acceptability of action figures ends at 5 inches and no sound. A girl needs standards.

3. The pet ramp staircase
“Unlike lesser pet staircases that are difficult to climb for arthritic older pets, this one converts to a ramp”

If your dog is so old and arthritic that they cannot even climb 3 stairs to get on your bed, it’s time for Fido to say goodbye to the world. Fido is hurting.

4. The world’s biggest crossworld puzzle.
“Holding a guinness record for its size, this crossword hangs on a full 7′ by 7′ of wall space”

Unless you have something else that holds a guinness record for how it hangs, or a whole lot of guinness, see #2.

Judicial Activism is simply a term thrown around by the right when a court does something it doesn’t like. The premise is this: Judges are deciding what can and can’t be done, thereby “creating law” and being activists. First, activists don’t create law. They wear maroon on the Main Green for Burma. Second, these judges are not creating laws, they are interpreting existing laws based on the constitution, and that will in fact result in mandates about what people can and can’t do. It’s pretty simple.

Here is how our court system works. A plaintiff has a complaint with a law or practice based on some constitutional principle. The Judges hear the complaint, and decide whether it is valid, or whether another constitutional principle applies. THAT’S IT. That, kids, is how you be a Judge.

But somewhere along the line, people, regardless of political persuasion, got the idea that Judges shouldn’t be Judges. As mentioned, the job of a Judge is to determine the constitutionality of law. So when the effect of a law is altered because that law is unconstitutional, a Judge has just done his or her job — even if it overturns the will of the people (see, you don’t matter).

Personally, I don’t understand why anyone would want to be in the army. Yes! I get to increase my chance of death! No…not really working for me. But for those who want to fight for their country, lose their big toe for their country, and get shiny stars for their country, I must say I respect your conviction and present the following “Oh God it’s what Rachel Thinks.”

The following article was posted on the Concerned Women for America’s Website, one of the largest and most prominent “pro family pro Christian” groups frolicking with Christ and his rainbows and ponies today. I would of course prefer to call them Christian Workers Forcing Acculturation, but it just doesn’t make for a very strong argument. Oh, what the hey.

This article is interesting. It is interesting because I actually agree with the main point on which it is predicated. I of course vehemently disagree with the extrapolations and conclusions that are made in response to this predicate. But it’s interesting to note that, well, they have a point.

And their point is this: military service is not a right. And, in my mind, they are correct. Military service is a privilege, because it requires a certain set of physical and mental characteristics to be a successful and productive soldier. My narco ass wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near an armored tank mission, because my body does not possess the characteristics to keep my fellow soldiers and myself safe.

But here’s the rub. I have a disability — there’s something wrong. There’s something that concretely and undeniably would jeopardize my performance under fire. This article treats homosexuality in the same way — as a disability. To put it plainly, it is just not.

Homosexuals, bisexuals, and other Queer Identifying persons can possess the same physical and mental capabilities as heterosexuals. How straight do you need to be to pull a trigger? So any argument that they intrinsically cannot do the job is an ignorant misconception.

But more important is the analysis of the impact of homosexuals on the military as a whole; on morale, cohesion, and discipline. Few proponents of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell are on the streets saying gay people aren’t physically up for the job. Their concern lies with the presence of homosexual people disrupting the unit of the military itself.

This article uses four arguments to dispel any opposition towards DADT.

First, it assumes that fewer people would enlist, with no evidence to that matter. It does not mention the skilled homosexual soldiers that would be able to enlist. It also cites a study from 1993 saying that a large percentage of enlisted men and women would not re-enlist with the presence of gays. This study is from 16 years ago. People thought New Kids on the Block were cool 16 years ago. Times have changed.

The article asserts that “[T]his would be tantamount to ordering military women to live in close quarters with men.” It would force persons to accept exposure to other persons who were sexually attracted to them.” This is one of the biggest misconceptions concerning gay people. Not all gay men are attracted to all men. Not all gay women are attracted to all women. And furthermore, even if attracted, they would have to actually be some kind of sexual threat to pose any kind of danger or problem for their fellow soldiers. So in other words, the heart of this issue is the fear that a gay service member may be attracted to a fellow soldier. And that, my friends, is called homophobia. And to deny a right, or privilege, to an individual based on homophobia is called discrimination. Discriminationin this sense is unconstitutional. It denies equal protection under the law.

But then the article makes yet another point that I agree with — civilian life and military life are not the same, and perhaps the military should be given some level of autonomy in deciding the way in which it operates. However, ultimately, the sovereignty of government institutions — organizations, states, even the military — stops when conflicts with the Constitution of the United States. When an argument is predicated on discrimination, it denies an individual their rights. Now I’m not talking about a right to be in the military. As I already mentioned, there is no such inalienable right. I’m talking about their right to be treated like everyone else, because Jefferson said it best: “All Men are Created Equal”